January 3, 2012

Careful What You Wish For

As parents we all just want our children to be happy. Whenever someone asks my mom what makes her happy, she usually responds, "when my kids are all happy." I tease her and say, "then you really shouldn't have had four kids!." I can really relate to this now as a parent and maybe that is why I am content with having two kids. :-) It is so hard to see your kids hurting. When Christian turned 14, I noticed that all the unanswered questions of his past were suddenly interfering with being a normal, happy kid. He was haunted by memories- some good and some not so good. He became depressed and lost interest in things he normally enjoyed. He began isolating himself from others. When your child is hurting and asks for help, you just do it. You don't think about yourself and you can't even think that far into the future because you are worried about their emotional state right now.

The search for Christian's birth family was the easiest piece of this story. He wanted answers and finding his birth family was the only way to get them, so that's what we did. I did my best to prepare him for many different scenarios, including that his family may have never abandoned him at all and that they might want him back. This was really not a concern for either of us because at 17, he was almost an adult and soon could choose wherever he wanted to go.

The reunion itself was also a positive experience. Although emotionally hard, it wasn't nearly as hard as the year following the reunion. The family accepted Christian with open arms and they also accepted this single mom who had raised him. It was like our family had grown and now spanned two great nations. Although Christian remembered them and never doubted they were his birth family, his feelings for them were not instantaneous. Imagine having spent the past eleven years feeling resentment and anger towards someone, and then suddenly learning everything you thought was true wasn't, and then having to change those feelings. It just doesn't happen that easily. It is a process...so we've learned.

I believe once we returned home from the reunion Christian finally grieved the loss of his birth family. He went through a very angry stage and a very depressed stage-both typical stages of grief.

I even went through a depressed stage myself over all that had happened. Even today I still struggle with some feelings of guilt. I wish there was another word besides "guilt" to explain it because it is not as if I felt I did something wrong. Maybe "survivor's guilt" is a better way to describe it. I find myself avoiding those Skype or QQ calls to China because it is just so painful to see how much his family misses him.

Despite the pain there is a peace that comes with finally having the answers. It gives you a chance to accept what happened and move on with your life. Christian has reached a point where he not only accepts his past but he wants to use it to help others. That is when the true healing occurs.

3 comments:

Hi Julia, thanks for sharing. I can totally relate to the guilt you feel and the depressive feelings after finding the birth family. I went through a similar phase when we found my daughter's birth family (who had NOT abandoned her). Very difficult emotions although it does get better along the way. Getting to know the family, being in touch with them and visiting them has been very healing!

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In the summer of 2000 I led a mission trip to an orphanage in China. I set out on this trip expecting to be taken in by all the little girls in the orphanage, but instead spent most of my time with the older children. One little boy in particular caught my attention. His name was Jiacheng and his engaging smile stole my heart. I knew I was supposed to do something to help this little boy, but I was 33 years old and single at the time. After returning to the US and praying for this little boy, I began the process to adopt Jiacheng. On April 5, 2001 the adoption was finalized in China and he officially became Christian Jiacheng Norris.

He adjusted very quickly to his new life in America and attached easily to me and my family. When he turned 14 years old, he asked me to help him find his birth parents. Unlike many adopted children, Christian had a lot of memories of his birth family and as he shared this information with me over the years I wrote it all down in the event that some day he might want to search for them. After searching on and off for three years, on May 31st, 2009 a non-profit organization in China that had been helping me in the search contacted me to say they had found Christian’s birth family.

It was such a surprise but the real shock came when we learned his birth family had never abandoned him but instead lost him in April of 1998 traveling back to his father's family village. The birth family searched for years but never got much help from the police. He was presumably kidnapped and sold to another family. Christian had always told me he remembered some man took him by bus and that they traveled for three days to another city. After that he recalls the man left him in a restaurant and never came back.

In February of 1999 the police three provinces away in Henan found him wandering the streets. When the police found him he was so traumatized that he couldn't speak so they just took him to the local orphanage, where he lived until I adopted him in 2001.

After finding his birth parents we immediately began planning a trip to China for a reunion in August 2009. I created this blog so family and friends could follow along with us on this incredible journey.